The majority of existing heating and/or cooling designs in homes and offices are designed as single or multiple zones. For example, in home design, typically an entire home or an entire floor of a home is designed to be in one zone. In this scenario, the temperature on the thermostat on the floor is set to a desired temperature. Once the temperature in the area where the thermostat is installed falls (or raises) below or above a set temperature, the thermostat sends a signal down to the boiler or air conditioner asking to start the heat or air conditioning to that floor. In the case of heat, the boiler starts heating up the water (to a set temp), opens up the valve to that floor and starts pumping the hot water up through that floor which passes through every room in that floor and back down to the boiler. While the hot water is circulated through the pipes passing through heating elements (each room has a section of heating element which may be, for example one or more baseboard heaters or radiant heat pipes) where the heat is given off to the surrounding air next to the heating element and as it does this hot water looses some of its heat. This process continues until the water returns back to the boiler which is heated up again and is sent back to that floor. This process continues until the temperature in the area where the thermostat is installed reaches the set temperature on the thermostat.
The problems with the current one zone systems are numerous. In the existing design, the temperature for all of the rooms on one floor or in the zone is controlled by a single thermostat that is located in a single room in that zone. This approach makes it impossible to have different temperatures in different rooms. For example, in a floor that consists of many rooms, if one or more rooms on that floor are not being used, those rooms will also have to be heated since the entire floor is connected in series by the heating pipes. You can not simply turn off the heat in that room and close the door.
Another problem with this design is that a room that is drafty (not well insulated for example) will be colder that another room that is well insulated. If the thermostat is located in a drafty room or an area where it is closer to a door that is used for outside access every time people enter or exit the temperature in that area will be affected. This causes the call for heat to be premature which causes a big temperature difference between rooms on that floor.
An additional problem with this design is the fact that hot water entering the first room in the circuit is hotter than the hot water entering the last room in the circuit due to loss of heat as the water travels from room to room through the heating elements. As a result, it is not possible in the standard one zone systems to maintain a constant temperature throughout all of the rooms in the zone and it is also not possible to raise or lower the temperature in one of the rooms within the zone independent of the temperature in the remaining rooms.
In order to solve the problems of the single zone systems, each room on a single floor could be placed on its own zone with its own thermostat. In order to achieve this, each room would need its own heating pipe connection from the boiler to the room and back to the boiler and each room would have to have its own thermostat and water circulator. This would cause each room to be its own complete zone. Therefore, if a single floor consisted of 6 rooms there would be 6 separate piping installations required from the boiler and back to the boiler, along with six separate thermostats and six separate hot water circulators. This type of system is seen in some homes, however this design can be prohibitively expensive. In an already constructed home, it would be extremely costly to install a system like this due to the extensive renovations that would be needed to convert a single zone system to a multizone system of this style.
Accordingly, what is needed is a simple system and method of converting a single zone heating system into a multizone system that does not require extensive renovations and does not require extensive new components, such as new piping to and from the boiler. The system should be easily installable, even by a skilled homeowner. The system should be relatively inexpensive and should allow for multiple zones within the home without requiring extensive changes to the current system already in use within the home.